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Will DCA be around in 5 years?


Will DCA be around in 5 years?  

99 members have voted

  1. 1. Will DCA be around in 5 years?

    • Yes
      33
    • No
      66


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19 minutes ago, Terri Schehr said:

Poppy, Jeff is 100% correct here. 

If you read Tricia Nadolny’s article “A Failure to Protect” from last fall, scroll down several paragraphs to “Then there was Morgan Larson”.   Trust me.  There’s a lot more to that story.  

https://www.inquirer.com/news/a/drum-corp-international-sexual-assault-misconduct-mike-stevens-george-hopkins-cadets-20181213.html

Oh my! And DCA knew all about this and did nothing? Don’t believe DCI wants anything to do with that, DCI has some lingering issues to deal with themselves. 

Edited by Poppycock
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15 minutes ago, Poppycock said:

Oh my! And DCA knew all about this and did nothing? Don’t believe DCI wants anything to do with that, DCI has some lingering issues to deal with themselves. 

To bring up to date Kilties have not been at DCA since this became public. Not sure of their status. Both circuits have ways to go imo.

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On 8/18/2019 at 1:07 AM, GetOFFmyDot said:

It feels like DCA has been on a down-slide for the past few years.  After the way the Renegades were treated (another topic, for another day), I stopped paying much attention to DCA.

I was rather shocked to see how few corps are still competing in DCA.  It looks like everyone who goes to championships will make finals?  Wha?!?!

Unless something major changes, I don't see much of a future for DCA.    Am I wrong?   Share your thoughts!

I was also shocked to see how few corps remain. I would put the five year survival odds at slim. The remaining senior corps will just do parades and local stuff.

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1 hour ago, N.E. Brigand said:

That was 2012 -- my first time attending a DCA show was that year's finals. I went because (1) I'd enough read enough positive comments here to want to test what I'd been told 20 years earlier about the inferiority of the senior circuit (so yay for DCP! thanks to this forum, DCA got a regular championship customer (and I dragged a friend along one year) and the all-age corps got someone who's bought a fair number of t-shirts) and (2) I'd attended my first DCI finals a few weeks earlier and been very disappointed, partly because it was, overall, a down year for DCI but largely because the sound in Lucas Oil is every bit as bad as they say if you're not sitting in the right place. (I next attended DCI finals in 2016, having bought tickets from a DCP member who has a block of great seats he purchases as a "Friends of DCI" member, and had a wonderful time.)

After the first couple Class A corps, I was wondering if I'd made the right choice, but things started to pick up, and the entertainment value just grew and grew. And then Kidsgrove performed, and it was the highlight of my evening. Even if the corps who performed afterwards were technically better, they were superfluous to me. I was sated after "Valley of the Kings".

Anyway, one of my points is that DCA had a reputation in some circles, going back a long time, as being second-rate. And sure, it's absolutely true that in terms of technical difficulty, by sheer virtue of having members who can rehearse for weeks on end, DCI has the edge. But art and entertainment cannot be valued on such terms alone, and in those broader terms, DCA corps did not deserve that reputation.

Also, sometimes DCA corps are in some aspects more innovative or challenging than DCI corps. (For instance, I think the most daring visual design in drum corps over the past decade happened in a particular DCA show. I'll let people figure out for themselves which one.) Only sometimes though.

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1 hour ago, N.E. Brigand said:

That was 2012 -- my first time attending a DCA show was that year's finals. I went because (1) I'd enough read enough positive comments here to want to test what I'd been told 20 years earlier about the inferiority of the senior circuit (so yay for DCP! thanks to this forum, DCA got a regular championship customer (and I dragged a friend along one year) and the all-age corps got someone who's bought a fair number of t-shirts) ...

Historical question: when did the top junior corps begin to surpass the top senior corps in technical achievement?

1950? 1960? 1970?

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10 minutes ago, N.E. Brigand said:

Historical question: when did the top junior corps begin to surpass the top senior corps in technical achievement?

1950? 1960? 1970?

Aw nutz I saw this somewhere and forget.... name the corps too please...

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I'm watching from half a country away, obviously, but it feels like all-age corps is really just a northeast "thing" with a couple of groups from the midwest and Atlanta in for good measure.  Having been on here through the short life of the Renegades, it really felt back then like the California groups were going to gain traction, especially as there were more groups growing and creating their own performance opportunities.  And when it went away, it went away very quickly.  In retrospect, while of course the Renegades brought their own issues, hindsight suggests that DCA suspending them pretty much killed any momentum for the movement in the entire region.

For the South, there's just zero-point-zero percent interest in adult groups down here.  For better or worse, marching band is a "for the kids" thing, and DCI has positioned itself smartly as AAU/Select Marching Band.  CV is the big exception/success story, but I get the impression it's more due to their unique talents and hard work than anything demographic-wise helping them. 

Without questioning the talent or work of the existing corps at all, I do wonder whether this is as big as the all-age circuit is going to be.  The NE groups seem to feel no pressure or obligation to expand, and it feels like the rest of the country is infertile ground.  

Mike

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Just now, MikeN said:

I'm watching from half a country away, obviously, but it feels like all-age corps is really just a northeast "thing" with a couple of groups from the midwest and Atlanta in for good measure.  Having been on here through the short life of the Renegades, it really felt back then like the California groups were going to gain traction, especially as there were more groups growing and creating their own performance opportunities.  And when it went away, it went away very quickly.  In retrospect, while of course the Renegades brought their own issues, hindsight suggests that DCA suspending them pretty much killed any momentum for the movement in the entire region.

When the Renegades were suspended following the 2012 championships (for trashing their Annapolis hotel rooms), to judge based on their placements, they actually appear to have already been in a bit of a slump, having placed 10th in three years after a string of 6th-8th finishes (and once at 5th). Which doesn't mean they needn't have recovered. But having to cross the entire country every year was surely very challenging to sustain.

And while I think your comments generally are apt, it's worth querying the other point of yours that I've bolded: weren't there once senior corps pretty much everywhere, just as there had been junior corps pretty much everywhere? And if so, the question may be: how did they persist for so long and so strong in the northeast?

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I've stayed away from drum corps for 9 years and haven't seen a live show since leaving Rochester in 2009.  I have seen a few DCA videos and a smattering of DCI YouTube video but that's it.  Fill me in.  When was the last time a DCA corps fielded 128 (or is it 135?)?  The videos I've seen of some of the top corps look like they only have 80-90 members.  Does DCA even record its Championships anymore?  I see nothing on its website indicating it has any products for sale.  How can it be expected to survive when it has no marketing materials and its history is essentially erased each year after the Championship victory concert?  I recall the recording and mechanization rights becoming a huge and expensive headache about 10 years ago, but surely there are more smart folks out there who can build a better mousetrap.  

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Just thinking of the logistics and costs I could never figure out how non NE corps could continually go to DCA Weekend. Even MBI dropped out for a while after being there starting late 70s. And the Class A Corps not from the NE (excepting Govies) where fairly new so where the heck was that to be budgeted from year after year. One big trip yes but keep it up every year. Thinking the TX corps mainly for that. 

Outside of NE only local action for these corps is part of a DCI show competing against the 1 or 2 other locals. Not sure what lot of them get out of the drive to DCA especially if not a top corps. 

Yeah my first year I rode with BoD members of a reforming corps so heard a lot of $$$ discussions. And before able to afford before buying is part of my upbringing so figure where I’m coming from

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